


Bad Advice

by OnceAndAlwaysEnglishMajor



Series: Naruto Drabbles [8]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Ino is very patient, Sai is a bit of a hot mess, bad dating advice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 16:29:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12511520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnceAndAlwaysEnglishMajor/pseuds/OnceAndAlwaysEnglishMajor
Summary: Sai wants to ask Ino out, but isn't sure how to go about it. He asks for advice, but the results are questionable.





	Bad Advice

**Author's Note:**

> Author has not finished Shippuden

     Sai stared at Ino, before he remembered that it was considered bad manners to stare. He wanted to ask her out. Well, he thought he wanted to ask her out. He was still working on his grasp of emotions, and not particularly sure what this exact emotion was. But he thought he wanted to ask Ino out. He needed to gather more information before making the attempt, Sai decided. He considered the people he knew. Some of them were in relationships, surely they could help. A solid plan.

  
     The first person he approached was Naruto. He and Hinata had recently started dating, surely he would know something about asking a girl out.   
     “Naruto, how did you ask Hinata out?” Sai asked his teammate. Naruto scratched the back of his head.   
     “Y’know, I don’t actually know? It just sorta happened, and now we’re dating!” He grinned. Sai filed that information under his mental not helpful file.   
     “What about now that you are dating?” Sai asked, trying a different tactic. “What sort of things do you do?”   
     “Go out for ramen, mostly! Why?” Naruto asked, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “Why do you want to know?” Sai shifted uncomfortably.   
     “There is a girl I would like to ask out, but I know my social skills are still sub par, so I do not know how to go about it,” Sai said.   
     “Who do you want to ask out?” Naruto asked. He stood too close, in what Sai’s books referred to as his personal bubble. Or what his personal bubble would be if he had one.   
     “Who is it? Hmm?” Naruto pressed.   
     “Ino,” Sai said.  
     “Ino? Really? Well if that’s what you want… I guess I can help you out!” Naruto said. “What you need is a way to get her attention. You get most of your information from books anyway, so why don’t you try pick up lines? Yeah! That would work great for you! I’ll help you find some good ones!”

     Sai approached Ino as she worked in her family’s flower shop, trying not to fidget with the slip of paper in his hands.   
     “Hey Sai, what can I do for you today?” Ino asked. Sai glanced at his paper.  
     “Are you a ninja? Because you snuck into my heart,” he said. Ino tilted her head in confusion, so Sai tried another.  
     “Are you a library book? Because I’d like to check you out.” Ino frowned. That was not the desired reaction. Sai decided to try his favorite line.   
     “Life without you is like a broken pencil: pointless,” he said.  
     “Sai, what are you doing?” Ino asked. Sai had one line left to try. Naruto had laughed for a solid fifteen minutes and said that it had to work.   
     “Do you like raisins? How do you feel about a date?” He said.   
     “Sai, are you trying to ask me out?” Ino asked.  
     “Yes. Is it working?” Ino closed her eyes and sighed.   
     “Let’s talk about it over lunch, ok? Mom! I’m going on my lunch break!” She called to the back of the store.   
     “Come on, you can buy me lunch,” Ino said. She tugged on Sai’s sleeve, leading him out of the shop.   
     “First things first,” Ino said, settling herself across from Sai in a little cafe close to the flower shop. “No pick up lines. No girl actually likes them, and they’re more likely to get you turned down without a second thought. What book suggested that? It’s obviously out of date.”  
     “Actually, it was Naruto who came up with the idea,” Sai said.   
     “Even worse,” Ino said. “Rule number one is no pick up lines. Rule number two is do not, under any circumstances, take dating advice from Naruto Uzumaki. He has no idea what he’s doing, and his relationship works because Hinata is clever and knows how to suggest things so he thinks they’re his idea. She's the common sense in that relationship. Sai, no, don’t write that down.”  
     “But I want to remember your rules,” Sai said. Ino reached across the table, covering his hand with her own.   
     “Not everything needs to have rules,” she said. “Just let it flow. Now, ask me how my day has been.”   
  
     Although the pick up lines succeeded in getting Ino to have lunch with him, Sai didn’t think he could actually consider his objective achieved. He needed another resource, and decided to approach Shikamaru. He was dating that scary Suna kunoichi, Temari, and he had been Ino’s teammate for years. Surely he would have some advice on how to ask her out. He found Shikamaru at the training grounds, though he was lying under a tree staring at the sky instead of training. Sai mentally rehearsed the steps for polite social interaction before approaching Shikamaru.   
     “Shikamaru? May I ask you a question?”   
     “Yeah, whatever,” Shikamaru said, but he sat up. Sai sat on the grass facing him.   
     “I would like to ask Ino out. You are her teammate, and also dating Temari yourself, what is your advice? How did you ask Temari out?” Sai asked. Shikamaru rubbed his neck.   
     “Well, I never really asked Temari out. She grabbed my ass one day and that was that,” he chuckled.   
     “Is that an appropriate form of courtship?” Sai asked.   
     “For Ino? It will either work or land you in the hospital,” Shikamaru said. “You’ve got about a fifty-fifty chance.”  
     “Those are not very good odds,” Sai said. Shikamaru shrugged.   
     “Hey, what do I know? Women don’t exactly operate under logical principles. And do not repeat that in front of Temari. Or Ino for that matter.”   
     “How am I going to figure this out if they do not follow the rules?” Sai asked. Shikamaru clapped him on the shoulder.  
     “Dude. Welcome to real life. None of us know what we’re doing when it comes to women.”

     Sai stood in line with Ino, waiting for their ice cream before they met up with the others for a movie. He watched a couple several people in front of them. The woman casually tucked her hand into her partner’s back pocket. Sai remembered what Shikamaru had said about grabbing Ino’s ass. Perhaps this would be a good time to try.   
     “Would you be opposed to that?” Sai asked. He really didn’t want to end up in the hospital. Then Sakura would yell at him as well.  
      “What?” Ino asked.   
      “That,” Sai started to point, then nodded to the couple in front of them instead. He remembered that pointing was on the list of Things That are Rude. Sakura smacked Naruto for it on a regular basis. Ino scanned the crowd to figure out what Sai was talking about.   
     “You want to put your hand in my pocket?” She asked for clarification. Sai nodded.   
     “Yes. Shikamaru actually said to grab your ass. But that it might also land me in the hospital,” Sai said. Ino’s eyes narrowed and her cheeks flushed. Sai shifted uneasily.   
     “Are you mad at me, Beautiful?” He asked. Ino patted him on the shoulder.   
     “Not at you, no. Shikamaru, however…” Her voice turned dangerous.   
     “It’s not really his fault,” Sai said. He didn’t want to bring Ino’s wrath down on Shikamaru. “I asked him how he and Temari started dating, how he asked her out. He didn’t, she grabbed his ass,” Sai tried to explain. Ino patted him on the shoulder again and let out a slow breath.   
     “Don’t worry about it, Sai. No one is going to the hospital tonight. And how about you hold my hand instead?”

      His goal of asking Ino out was proving more difficult than Sai had anticipated. His attempts just didn’t come off as planned, and he couldn’t understand it. Perhaps he needed the advice of an actual adult. He headed toward the Hokage’s office to find his team captain, Yamato, and ask his advice. He stepped into the Hokage’s office hesitantly.   
     “I do not want to interrupt,” he said. Kakashi waved him aside.  
     “I’m just doing paperwork, and you wanted to talk to Ten--- Yamato anyway, right?” Sai nodded.  
     “Then talk,” Kakashi said.   
     “Captain Yamato, I need advice from an adult. I want to ask Ino out, but am unsure how to go about it, and asking my peers has proven… Unsuccessful,” Sai said.   
     “Oh dear lord,” Yamato muttered. “Who did you ask?”   
     “Naruto and Shikamaru. They are both in relationships…” Kakashi snorted from his desk.   
     “Senpai,” Yamato warned.   
     “What? We all know that those boys got fucking lucky,” Kakashi said.  
     “Senpai. Language,” Yamato said. Kakashi ingnored him, digging around in his desk drawers before triumphantly holding up a battered, brightly colored paperback.   
     “This is what you need, Sai.” Kakashi offered him the book. Yamato paled.   
     “Kakashi, no. You are not going to corrupt him with that trash.”  
     “It’s not trash! It’s an epic romance!” Kakashi protested. “Look at page 273 for some good pointers, Sai.”  
     “Senpai, that doesn’t work, and will never work!” Yamato said in exasperation.   
     “It worked on you, didn’t it?” Kakashi said. Yamato turned violently red.   
     “That is not what happened and you know it!” He hissed. Sai sighed, took the book, and left the office while Kakashi and Yamato were still arguing. Or maybe flirting, he wasn’t quite sure. So much for getting an adult perspective.

     “Ino?” Sai said, holding Kakashi’s book gingerly. She looked up, saw the book, and sighed.   
     “Who’s idea was this?” She asked.  
     “Lord Hokage’s,” Sai said.   
     “Naruto might get to be Hokage after all,” Ino muttered. “I should kill him for this.” She pinched the bridge of her nose.                            “All right, what do you want to know?”

     After the Icha Icha debacle, Sai wasn’t sure if he should keep asking for advice or just give up. He had been avoiding talking to Sakura, because he knew it annoyed her when he quoted information from his books, and an annoyed Sakura usually meant he got smacked. But she was friends with Ino, and a girl, so maybe she could give him some advice. He knew her schedule at the hospital, so he bought her a coffee and waited until she had a break.   
     “Thanks, Sai,” Sakura said, sipping the coffee gratefully. “I know that look, what do you want to talk about?”  
     “Ino,” Sai said.  
     “What about Ino?” Sakura took another drink of her coffee.   
     “I would like to ask her out, and I have been seeking advice on how to do so ---from actual people, not books--- but all my attempts have been unsuccessful,” Sai said.   
     “Yeah, I heard about some of those,” Sakura admitted.   
     “Then what do I do?” Sai asked.   
     “Have you tried just telling her how you feel?” Sakura asked. “Just tell her. Be straightforward, and see how she feels about it.”

     “Ino?” Sai asked, shuffling in front of the counter while Ino finished wrapping an arrangement.   
     “Yes, Sai?” Ino asked patiently. He’d been wandering around the shop for the last twenty minutes without saying anything.   
     “Would you be interested in going out with me?” He asked. He focused on her with too much intensity, but Ino didn’t mind.   
     “Of course,” Ino said. She smiled. “I knew you’d get there eventually!”   
     “You knew I was trying to ask you out?” Sai asked.   
     “Of course. You weren’t overly subtle about it. I like you too, Sai. But in the future, just talk to me about the next steps in our relationship, alright?” Sai smiled, a real genuine smile.  
     “Alright." 


End file.
